Did shinobi have ambitions?
Did shinobi want to rebel?
Could the ruling order truly last for ten thousand generations?
These were the questions that haunted the Fire Daimyō day and night.
To safeguard their rule, the daimyō had gone to great lengths to construct an ideological cage for shinobi—
The "Shinobi-as-Tools" doctrine.
Shinobi steeped in this way of thinking would devote themselves to completing their employers' missions to perfection, never stopping to question the meaning behind those missions.
And although reality had indeed been twisted into the shape the daimyō desired, it did nothing to change their true nature.
They were nothing more than paper tigers.
On the surface, they sat high above all others.
In truth, they possessed authority—but no power.
All it would take was one sufficiently powerful shinobi, willing to defy the world, to drag them down from their pedestal.
Even if Senju Hashirama had never done such a thing, as time passed and the era of shinobi clans transitioned into the era of shinobi villages, the balance would inevitably tilt.
Power would concentrate in the hands of shinobi leaders.
The Kage could reduce the daimyō to puppets.
A single missing-nin from a great village could casually conquer a small country.
When that day came, shinobi would naturally discover…
some very interesting truths.
Uchiha Makoto understood the future perfectly—
and he understood the Fire Daimyō's mindset just as clearly.
"Your Excellency," Makoto said calmly,
"the conflict between the Uchiha clan and the Senju clan has completely ended."
The Fire Daimyō froze for a brief moment before his face filled with shock.
"Ended?"
"It has ended—completely," Makoto emphasized.
"How is that possible?" the Daimyō blurted out.
He knew the relationship between the Uchiha and the Senju all too well. Their feud spanned a thousand years—intertwined, bloody, unending.
And now it was over?
That was absurd.
Impossible.
Absolutely impossible.
"Could it be that the Uchiha achieved final victory and wiped out the Senju?"
"Or perhaps the Senju—"
This was where the Daimyō's thoughts instinctively went.
From his perspective, there was only one way such a war could truly end:
One clan had to vanish from the shinobi world.
From a certain angle…
The Fire Daimyō wasn't actually wrong.
After Konohagakure was founded, the struggle between the Senju and the Uchiha never truly stopped. It merely shifted to a deeper, more covert battlefield—the struggle over the Hokage's seat.
The Senju clan would be the first to fade away.
The Uchiha would continue battling the inheritors of the Senju's will—
until they, too, were annihilated.
As for the idea that the Senju and the Uchiha would abandon a millennium of hatred and shake hands in reconciliation—
That possibility had never even crossed the Daimyō's mind.
Reconciliation?
How could something like that possibly happen?!
And yet—
It happened anyway.
A pitch-black joke.
Makoto recounted the recent events, carefully omitting the less flattering details—such as the Uchiha being crushed across the board.
After all, with Uchiha Izuna gone and Senju Tobirama acting as a hard counter to the Uchiha, the balance had already been irreparably skewed.
For the sake of "game balance," Tobirama should really have been banned outright.
But the most important point—
the one that demanded emphasis—
Was Senju Hashirama, the so-called Senju succubus, stabbing himself with a kunai and threatening suicide to prove his sincerity—
Finally convincing Uchiha Madara and achieving the once-unthinkable great reconciliation between the Senju and the Uchiha.
"To secure peace between the two clans," the Daimyō said incredulously,
"Hashirama… stabbed himself with a kunai? Tried to kill himself?"
"That's correct," Makoto replied.
"And you're certain a kunai could actually harm Senju Hashirama?"
The Daimyō had heard of Hashirama's terrifying regenerative abilities.
They bordered on the inhuman.
He had seen too many cheap, melodramatic displays of self-sacrifice to take such a claim at face value.
So he stared hard at Makoto.
"Speak honestly," his gaze seemed to say.
"Senju Hashirama—you thick-browed bastard—were you putting on a show?"
"Well… at the very least," Makoto said after a pause,
"Madara believed it."
In truth, Makoto didn't know either.
But that wasn't important.
It was like this—
A few days before your wedding, your girlfriend spends an entire night alone in a hotel room with another man.
Did they actually do anything?
Does that question really matter?
No.
What mattered was your attitude.
If you trusted her, then even if something had happened—
even if you were metaphorically wearing a green hat—
you'd still go through with the marriage.
But if you didn't trust her—
Then even if she truly did nothing, the marriage was already impossible.
Believe in the power of belief.
Whether Hashirama could actually kill himself with a kunai didn't matter.
What mattered was that Uchiha Madara believed he could.
Makoto finished his explanation.
The Fire Daimyō was convinced. He no longer dwelled on the kunai.
"Th-That is… truly something to celebrate," he said stiffly.
He sat there in silence for a long moment, digesting the information. Only after repeatedly confirming its authenticity did he finally manage to squeeze out those words.
But deep down, his heart was filled with bitterness.
The combined power of Senju Hashirama and Uchiha Madara was enough to overturn the entire shinobi world.
Normally, this would have been manageable.
For centuries, endless warfare among shinobi clans—fighting over resources and missions—had been carefully exploited by the daimyō.
They encouraged hatred.
They encouraged internal strife.
And while the clans tore each other apart, the daimyō sat comfortably behind the curtain.
The Senju and the Uchiha were the most obvious example.
The optimal solution to threats like Hashirama and Madara was simple—
Use heroes to fight heroes.
Use monsters to restrain monsters.
Let Madara fight Hashirama.
Let them follow their ancestors' "fine tradition" and battle until their final breaths.
That would have been perfect.
But the worst possible outcome had occurred.
Damn it—
The Senju and the Uchiha reconciled?!
You actually reconciled?!
How could something like this be allowed?!
For childhood dreams?
For children never stepping onto the battlefield again?
For "peace in the shinobi world"?
What a load of crap from bloodline-obsessed clans!
Peace in the shinobi world—
a slogan we daimyō have used and discarded countless times—
And you two treat it like a sacred treasure?!
You've utterly disgraced the honor of your clans for eighteen generations!